Best practices for Java applications running on VMWare Virtual Machines

Here is a nice article that talks about how to configure memory and virtual CPU allocation in virtual machines running Java applications.

• Size the VM memory to support Java heap, OS running on the VM and memory to support any other apps running on that VM.
• Set the memory reservation in the VM to allocate the memory when it starts.
• Use large memory pages
• Choose optimum virtual CPUs. Assigning too many vCPUs would be detrimental if there are other VMs contending for the same resources. If you assigned 4 vCPUs for your VM, ESX will wait until it has all 4 vCPUs available everytime your VM requests CPUs. So, fewer the vCPUs may be better.
• For easier monitoring and load balancing, use one JVM per VM